Perth woman Donna Nelson entered a Tokyo court on the first morning of her drugs trial in tears and handcuffs as prosecutors alleged she was caught in a Japanese airport with 1.9 kilograms of methamphetamine in her luggage.
Nelson sat just metres away from family members who she has not been able to speak to for almost two years, and appeared much thinner than when she left Perth in January last year.
A sketch of Donna Nelson in court in Japan on the first day of her drug trial. Credit: Yoshitaka Enomoto
She was in tears at times, but also smiled brightly when she saw her three-year-old grandson.
Nelson was arrested at Japan’s Narita International Airport just outside Tokyo when customs officials allegedly found the drugs hidden in a double-bottom suitcase she was carrying.
Nelson said she received the suitcase from an acquaintance of a man she met on social media and brought it from Laos to Tokyo as instructed. She was supposed to meet up with the man in Japan, but he never showed up, according to prosecutors.
She was arrested on the spot and later charged with violating the stimulants control and customs laws.
The 58-year-old grandmother, who was a Greens candidate in the last federal election, was asked in court whether there were any mistakes in the accusations.
She replied that she had no knowledge that there were stimulants in the luggage, saying she was deceived by a man named Kelly with whom she had been considering marrying.
“I am innocent,” she told the court.
In a brief statement to the Chiba District Court, Nelson said she did not know the drugs were hidden in the suitcase and that she was carrying them for a man she thought she loved.
Prosecutors acknowledged the case is linked to a romance scam but accused Nelson of smuggling the drugs, claiming she knew the contents of the suitcase.
Nelson’s lawyer Rie Nishida said her client was the victim of a romance scam and that she “had her trust and love taken advantage of”.
Nishida said that customs officials’ limited English-language ability led to mistranslations and the accusation that Nelson knew what she was carrying.
Outside court during a lunch break her daughters, who had seen her for the first time in two years, said the morning was hard and emotional.
“Seeing her, she looks so different to how she looked when she left,” eldest daughter Kristal Hilaire said.
“So I think that might have been a bit hard for the others as well. I could see that she was emotional too. So that was hard.”
A sketch of Donna Nelson. Her daughter said Nelson was thinner than when she left Perth.Credit: Yoshitaka Enomoto
They said they were trying to be strong so that when Nelson locked eyes with them in court, she could feed off their strength.
“I don’t think any preparation could really help prepare us for today and the days to come, but we just see how it goes, and be strong for her. She’s going to be reading our faces,” Hilaire said.
The trial comes just weeks after the recent acquittal of an 88-year-old former boxer, Iwao Hakamada, who was on death row for about half a century on wrongful murder convictions. That case rekindled concerns about Japan’s closed-door investigation processes and lengthy trials.
With AP
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